Wow, that was a tough day. I never cycled so far yet. A new personal best with all the luggage, 35°, at least 20km gravel or farm path and with a back wheel losing continuously slowly air. I noticed in the morning that there isn’t that much air in the back wheel. But I assumed it is maybe of all the weight and I just pumped it before starting. At the end, almost no air was left, when I arrived exhausted in Kalocsa.
Most of the way, the EuroVelo 6 route was following the Ráckevei-Duna. Compared to yesterday, the EV6 markings are again better (although I sometimes still had to verify on Komoot if it is still the right direction). The Ráckevei-Duna is a large tributary river of the Danube (Duna). What is Ráckeve then? It is a small town at the tributary, where I turned right instead of following the EV6 to sightsee a monastry church just about 200m away. It is one of the oldest extant Serbian orthodox churches (according to their website the oldest) in Hungary from the 12th century. I put my bicycle into the inner yard and turned on the alarm. Then I forgot to take my small front bag with the important belongings with me and of course, I forgot to turn off the alarm first. That was when they latest knew that I want to sightsee the church. There is an entry fee (theoretically a free donation, but after the alarm, well, I somehow had to pay it). The wall paintings are incredibly well preserved and definitively worth the entry fee/donation, so that they can protect and renovate from time to time.
Later a gravel road full of small holes followed. I‘m not sure if the houses here are for living or more as vacation residences for people from e.g. Budapest. Sometimes I notice some dogs. But they are almost always behind a gate or at the leash and the few others are behave very well. I like it and feel more relaxed and less tense than in other countries (and from what I read Romania/Bulgaria will be the opposite…). It is also a lot better here than in Switzerland, where you sometimes have to be afraid of dogs during jogging.
Gravel road is done, some paved road came. But only short. Then came a long farm/field/grass road. It was slightly raised on a dam. No shadows for many kilometers and about 35°. Nevertheless, it still felt a bit to be in nature. Of course it is more tiring to cycle on such roads and I could drive often only about 10-15km/h, but if you have enough water, sun cream and time, all is good 🙂 . At a farm somewhere on these fields were many animals: sheeps, geese, donkeys, horses, goats. They even didn‘t look like they don‘t have enough food. At least they have plenty of hay. And if they like, a lot of insects, especially grasshoppers. It was very difficult to not run over them. They are jumping in unpredictable directions. If I try to drive on their back side, they do a back flip into the wheel. At least I tried to not run over too many by slowing down the pace a little. And I saw again the same caterpillar as on my first day after Bratislava 🙂 . Meanwhile I know what it is: Hyles Euphorbiae (spurge hawk-moth). Euphorbiae, because the caterpillars eat often at euphorbias. According to Wikipedia, they can be used as biological pest control against the noxious weed Euphorbia virgata (leafy spurge). Last entomological excursion: there are extremly many nosed grasshoppers (also called cone-headed grasshoppers, Acrida ungarica). They are very large. It is written up to 60mm, but I had the feeling some were even larger. The most were green, a few were gray. Have a look at their funny nose-like head in the pictures 😀 .
Slowly my body battery was going down. I drank a very tasty black cherry flavored energy drink called „Hell“. With that boost I managed the last kilometers (I took at some point the road instead of another farm path). What are you doing when your energy is almost at zero? Do some mind games like funny explanations for the village names: Harta is on the Charta (alias map in English), Danupataj has the best Pad Thai at the Danube, Ordas and Dunaszentbenedek mysterious order of saint Benedict. And finally with my flat back wheel I reached Kalocsa.
Last words of this long day: Vegetarian food is delicious here in Hungary. I had a huge portion of pasta with mushrooms and a lemon lemonade and a cherry beer (called Mort Subite, hopefully not yet 😉 ).
